'Nick, please, do — it's a lovely idea. But leave the porn where it is. I may as well take the bad with the good. It's the first on the right at the top of the stairs. I'll go and put the kettle on.'
I sat at Pete's desk, feeling sad and angry in just about equal proportions. The three of them had had it all in front of them. Whoever had killed Pete had also gunned down a lot of dreams.
The desk faced the window and looked down on the garden. Ruby was back outside, playing on her swing. She sang a little song to herself. I watched her for a while, but my mind was elsewhere. I had a perfect mental picture of Kelly doing exactly the same thing. It was no time at all before she hadn't wanted to play on swings any more. It would happen to Ruby, too, in a year or two…
Fuck it. Time to cut away from that shit.
It was an uncluttered office, as I'd expected. There was a desk, the swivel chair I was sitting in, a filing cabinet, shelves containing hundreds of labelled video-cassettes and DVDs. Sudan, Darfur, Baghdad. Anywhere that had seen conflict, Pete had shot some film.
Family pictures were Blu-Tacked to the walls. A framed portrait of Dom and Pete in black tie stood on the desk. Between them they held an Emmy aloft like it was the FA Cup. Both wore huge grins as they basked in the moment, partners in crime.
I could smell perfume. Tallulah had been here very recently… as if sitting in his chair, in his room, might somehow bring him back.
Pete had said he'd miss the camaraderie if he gave up the front line, and then he'd laughed. Now I realized why. He was already a member of a much stronger unit. I wondered what it must be like.
I got up and looked along the spines of the VHS and DVD cases. All were neatly and precisely labelled, including several for Kabul 2006, but none said Dublin. There wasn't anything dated this year.
The Mac was on screen-saver. I hit a key and had a look at the desktop. It was packed with folder icons. I did a search for Dublin. Nothing. Then anything with D as a first letter. I got a QuickTime film of Dubai: Pete mucking about with Ruby in a water park. I even searched for Dirty Old Men. Nothing. Not even any porn.
Ruby's song floated up from the garden as I pulled open P — Z, the bottom of the three drawers. I opened a folder marked VAT. Pete had done himself proud. All the returns were in date order, but there weren't any receipts or invoices.
Dublin with a D.
I pulled open the top drawer, A — J. There was nothing labelled Dublin, but there was a hanging folder labelled 'Invoices'. As I opened it, Ruby was drowned by a jet lining up on Heathrow.
The folder was stuffed with receipts, ready for Pete to process. A sheet of A4 was addressed to TVZ in Dublin: '2 DAYS FILMING — DUBLIN.'
His rate was £200 a day, plus hotel, flight and van hire. The invoice was for the attention of Moira Foley, Head of News, but it had been returned. Scrawled across the bottom in thick felt tip was: 'WHAT JOB? DON'T TRY TO PULL THE FUCKING WOOL OVER MY EYES — YOU'RE NOT SMART ENOUGH.'
A yellow Post-it note was stuck next to Moira's kind words. On it, in neat biro, was: 'Sorry about the misunderstanding — here's the cheque — All best, Dom.'
'Here we go.' Tallulah came in with a mug in each hand.
I closed the file and replaced it. 'Tallulah, I'm sorry, I've just realized the time.' I tapped my arm. 'Hospital appointment. I didn't find anything, but I will. I promise you.'
She put the mugs on the desk and a couple of fresh tears rolled down her cheeks as she gave me a hug. Her face burnt. Her gorgeous green eyes were puffy and swollen.
'Who's Kelly, Nick? Your daughter?'
'No, I was a bit like you, really. I sort of landed up looking after her.'
'Was? You mean you're not looking after her any more? She's grown-up now?'
'She got to be sixteen, then went to show God how to use a swing.'
I left her to it and saw myself out. My arm was throbbing, and so was my head.
27
The evening was still warm when the cab dropped me at Vauxhall station. Even the daffs were pushing up here and there. I crossed to a traffic island, leather bomber over my right arm, the other in a sling.
It wasn't just the weather that had changed since the last time I was here. The roads were plastered with big red Cs to show the start of the congestion zone, while CCTV and number-plate-recognition cameras had sprouted everywhere.
The railway arches were no longer the shabby tyre warehouses and dodgy MOT centres I remembered from four or five years ago. They'd been turned into trendy wine merchants and bathroom stores. There was even a gay club and sauna, and a wine bar with little aluminium tables and chairs outside trying to keep the office workers there all night with happy-hour wine deals and free dips. The sauna lights flashed enticingly.
MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, the Firm, the Office: everybody had a different name for it. Some insiders had even called it Caesar's Palace when it first went up, and it wasn't hard to see why. It was a beige and black pyramid with its top cut off, and large towers at either side. There was even a terrace bar overlooking the river. It only needed a few swirls of neon and you'd swear you were in Las Vegas. Maybe it would become a super-casino when it had had its time.
I'd always preferred Century House myself, the old SIS building near Waterloo station. It might have been 1960s square minging architecture with droopy net curtains and antennae all over the roof but it was a lot handier for the bus and tube, and much more homely. And the old guy who ran the greasy spoon on the corner had served real food — dead animals and snacks with so many E numbers they glowed in the dark.
Even at this time of night, the multiple lanes of city traffic rumbled along like a slow-motion explosion. I crossed at the lights. I'd never expected to come face to face with the Yes Man again, but it wasn't like I had a whole lot of choice. The Firm had known where to find me within hours of my landing at Heathrow. Maybe it was the flight manifest, maybe face-recognition cameras at the airport. Whatever, if I tried to run they'd lift me before I got a mile down the road. Then they'd do more than ask for their envelope back.
This wasn't the Women's Institute, and it wasn't just a cake-baking session I'd be refusing to attend. The people who worked in the building in front of me killed for a living. It was pointless running: I'd just die knackered and out of breath. I didn't want to be a body pulled from a car crash just for saying no to a meeting. Besides, I wanted to find out what job he had in mind. I was pretty sure that the reappearance of the Yes Man at this precise moment in my life was no coincidence.
And, anyway, I'd just got the sack. There might be cash involved. When you live at the bottom of the food chain you have to take a bite of the shit sandwich when it's shoved in your face. Maybe that was why I'd never found it hard to get on with Africans, Arabs, squaddies, whoever. They soon discovered I was like them — waist deep in the shit-pit and happy to get my head up enough to take a few breaths occasionally before I got pushed back down.
I followed a couple of suits along the pavement. They must have been the night shift. They disappeared behind the steel fencing of 85 Albert Embankment and into the pyramid. I followed.
28
I wondered how an arsehole like the Yes Man fitted in with life behind the triple-glazed windows, these days. I'd heard the Firm's new leadership matched the new building: younger, meaner, more aggressive. If the Yes Man was still the boss of deniable operators, the Ks, it could only mean he'd slipped off the greasy pole. Good. Fuck him and the boils on his neck.